[car engines in the distance] [young girl singing in Diné] We have over 60 missing relatives right now.

Just reported from Navajo Nation.

And we're looking at all of our relatives who are missing outside of the border town communities.

My sister went missing from this community 21 years ago, this past May.

Her name is Tiffany Reid.

And to be in space with families who are still experiencing the same kind of trauma that my family went through 20 years ago.

It's really heartbreaking to me that not much has changed in our community.

Every time I'm traveling, like to Farmington or anywhere...Cortez... I'm always looking out for any native girls, native girls walking, just hoping it would be Ranelle.

[dramatic music swell] It's a scorching day in Shiprock, New Mexico.

Dozens of people have marched down State Route 64, a main artery connecting the city of Farmington to this unincorporated community.

Continue to roar like a lion and fight like a bear.

And don't ever let anyone take your voice.

Many walk through silent tears, through grief, through anger.

They have all lost someone: a mother, a father, a sister and aunt, a child, a friend.

So the mom took it upon herself to do the missing person report.

And so we just want to be there to support the families and some of our children here.

Their parents have been murdered.

These are the ones left behind.

The victims left to mourn the missing and murdered from native populations across the United States.

Ranelle was very outgoing.

She was born premature, so she was tiny.

That's how she got her name.

She was so tiny.

Like it was just small little baby.

But my sister, she grew up, and she used to have a big mouth, like she's being sarcastic and everything.

And I would be telling joking like, you know what I said?

You have a big mouth for somebody whose mom's nipple couldn't fit in your mouth when you were born, you know.

Ranelle Rose Bennett was born on May 1st 1988 in Phoenix, Arizona.

The youngest of four siblings, Ranelle lived in Hogback, New Mexico, a small town between Shiprock and Farmington.

She stood a modest five foot two and weighed just over 120 pounds.

She cared about her niece and nephew.

She was close to my kids and she was close with all her nieces and nephews, you The wisecracking, fun loving aunt was also the mother of two, a boy and a girl.

The kids lived with their maternal grandmother, Rose, but Ranelle doted on them as much as she could, keeping close contact with them on a daily basis by text or a phone call.

She wasn't just a nobody.

She was loved.

She was very, very loved.

Regardless of what she was doing like it don't matter.

Like many in the Navajo Nation, Ranelle battled addiction throughout her life.

Just before Ranelle went missing, she started dating a man who we’ll call “Jim.” This person had been suspected in a number of home invasions in the Shiprock area.

She was dating someone for, gosh, maybe a month, who had a very, very violent past.

So he had a pattern of being abusive to women.

She didn't hide anything.

She was truthful.

She was very to the point, you know, she didn’t beat around the bush, like even for me when I was in my addiction.

And I fell down twice, had to restart my life two times prior to this, last time that I fell down and I always got back up.

Got my house, got my job, everything.

And then this last time it was like I was thinking it was two, two years, three years into my addiction and my sister was like, you know what?

She goes, “what, are you gonna knock this off and come back up here and let me”... she goes, “You used to be my role model.” She goes... “But you're not anymore because you're still down here in the slums with me.

You need to get better.” And I think that's what I took on hard when I was in jail.

Like what she would say because I knew she was missing.

You know, after a year, she went missing.

I. I went to jail.

I was out there for six months, and the whole time was just my sister.

Keep on.

I just hear my sister saying that the whole time.

So it was like time for change.

I need to fix myself for my mom, for my sister's kids, for my kids and my grandkids.

The inequities suffered by Native Americans date back centuries.

The earliest appearance of the Athabascans date back to somewhere between 800 and 1000 A.D.

the Navajo tribe settled in what is now the Four Corners region.

Where New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado meet.

It was here the tribal members lived for hundreds of years, developing agricultural practices and cultural identity.

Then, in the early 16th century, their worlds would be disrupted forever, by the arrival of Spanish conquistadors.

Indigenous women were objectified by these new settlers, first being revered for their exotic and foreign appearances as queens.

This identity came from the colonizer’s perception of indigenous women as exotic, powerful, and something to be revered and celebrated... before colonization spread.

As it intensified, their identity morphed into Indian princesses.

According to researcher Elijah Corbett's study of indigenous representation in the media, this stereotype made the female presence less threatening as conflict increased.

Then finally came what is now known as the “S Word,” a phrase that is considered by many native women as offensive as the “N Word,” a word that literally translates to “dirty, immoral, and unworthy.” The Navajo were further subjected to a scorched-earth campaign in 1863, led by the US Army to deal with the “Indian problem.” Thousands of men, women and children were forced to walk nearly 400 miles to Bosque Redondo, a settlement in east central New Mexico.

They would be held here for five long years, before the treaty of 1868 was brokered between the U.S.

government and Navajo leaders, Manuelito and Barboncito.

Although the deal returned the Navajo to their homeland, it came at a cost.

Children were forced to assimilate to European culture.

Their land could still be exploited for resources, road and railways, and and historically matriarchal leadership turned to the patriarchy.

Today, the vast landscape of basalt and sandstone is home to nearly 400,000 indigenous people, and about a third of that population still doesn't have access to running water in their homes.

Native American women are ten times more likely than the national average to go to to be victims of homicide.

That one out of two Native American women are victims of sexual assault.

The data for the number of Native American women that are victims of violent crime can be from anywhere between 83% to 87%, and those are numbers that would not be acceptable in mainstream America.

I worked for the district attorney's office in Farmington and had the opportunity to work on the Betty Lee case, which was a Navajo woman who was murdered by a serial killer, Robert Frye.

And then the following year, my friend Melissa Montoya went missing from the Jicarilla Apache Nation on Saint Patrick's Day in 2001.

Yá át ééh My name is Rose Yazzie, and um... Ranelle Rose Bennett was my my baby.

The day she went missing.

I last talked to her and were talking about her daughter's upcoming birthday.

It was like only three days before her daughter's birthday, and we were getting things done.

And I was telling her about, um, Me ordering some food for the for her birthday and that day, She was with the, the guy that she mentioned in her house.

And she said, “I'll be there, mom.

You know, I'll never forget my daughter's birthday.” And she kept looking back into the the back room and I said,”who's back there?” And I said, “okay, baby.

Well, I'll see you at the birthday party.” And she gave me the longest hug.

It was during my niece's birthday party.

And I remember I called home and my mom was asking me, “Do you know anything about your sister's friends?” We started her daughter's birthday and her daughter kept texting her.

“Mom, did you forget my birthday?

Mom, are you still coming out?” We waited for her, but she never showed up.

So by the end of the day, I told my other daughter.

I said, “you know something's wrong.

It's not like her.” Ranelle, who had been eager to celebrate her daughter, was a no-show for the party.

Calls went unanswered.

Texts left without a reply.

Hours turned into days with no sign or word from the 33-year-old mother of two.

Georgianna and her family are helplessly left to wonder: “Where is my sister?

What happened to my sister?” The temperatures on June 21st flirted with triple digits.

The oppressive heat exacerbating the situation for Rose Yazzie, whose daughter had now been missing for more than five days.

And one day she had filed the missing person report.

And, mind you, the police department’s on top of the hill and the criminal investigators is on the other side of the bridge in Shiprock, just not too far from each other.

Ten agonizing days go by, and Rose hears nothing from the authorities.

She returns to Shiprock Police to check on the status of the investigation, and the P.D.

had told her, “Well, you know, criminal investigator has it.” So they made my mom go all the way across the bridge and go to the criminal investigator’s office.

And the criminal investigator goes, “Oh, we don't have nothing on her yet.

Go back up to the police department.” You have a damn phone, make phone calls, help you out.

You know, making this mother that's hurting and trying to find things, you're just making her feel like... it's blocked.

That's where people give up at because these people do not know how to communicate.

It was her mother who had to continue to make sure that there was a police report, that her mother had to continue to make sure that the Navajo Nation police officers and criminal investigators were aware of the case.

I do believe that, because we have not been able to speak to the criminal investigator directly and that the Bureau of Indian Affairs with myself, I've spoken to that agent one time.

The families had a couple of different conversations with her, that we really don't know exactly what's happening.

That we have to believe that the Bureau of Indian Affairs is doing the investigation, you know, in a quick manner that they're following up on leads, that they're pulling warrants, that they're really trying to find out what happened to Ranelle Rose Bennett, because she left on very suspicious circumstances.

Left to fend for themselves, Ranelle’s family starts investigating on their own.

When I went looking and I started asking questions and I went to this one guy's house, apparently they were... My family was telling me that it was the last person she called.

So I went to his house, but he wasn't there.

Only the wife was.

And and I was like, “I need to talk to him, to tell him to call me.” I said, because I need to know where my sister's at.

And that's when the wife got upset and she was like, “I don't appreciate you coming here and I don't like your sister.” And I said, “I know that.” I said, but I'm asking you to tell him to call me.

I said, “Apparently he is a suspect and I want to I know he wouldn't hurt her, but I said, that's the only way we can clear his name is he talks to me.” But I never he never got in touch with me.

The days roll on, the trail grows colder, and Ranelle’s family is desperate for answers in the void of her absence.

I was so mad, I mean... I didn't know what to do.

You know, like I just in my mind, I just want to go out to go harass these people.

Beat them up.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, just go hurt people.

That's what I wanted to do.

Now, to a case making national headlines tonight.

This urgent search for Gabby Petito.

Gabby Petito, search for a missing woman, Gabby Petito to Gabby Petito.

Three months after Ranelle went missing, regional and national news networks began reporting on another missing persons case.

Gabby Petito Gabby Petito was a 22-year -old aspiring Instagram influencer from New York.

According to The New York Times, She and her boyfriend Brian Laundrie, set out on a road trip in July that would take them across the United States on a four month odyssey chronicling their bohemian lifestyle of van life in the nation's most majestic national parks.

You want to place your vehicle into park and go ahead and turn it off for.

A little more than a month after they set off on their trip, the Moab Police Department received reports of a domestic problem between the two.

Yeah, I don't know.

It was... somedays, I have really bad OCD, and I... I really try to distiance myself from her... Like I locked the car and I walked away from her.

Police recommended that Petito stay in the van, and Laundrie stay in a hotel that evening to stay away from each other tonight, giving the couple a chance to cool off after the incident.

Days later, the couple posted a video on YouTube.

That video was a far cry from the domestic turbulence captured on police body cam footage just days prior.

Then, on August 25th, Gabby Petito would post the last time on her Instagram account.

There is breaking news in the search for Gabby Petito.

Just moments ago, officials say remains found near Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming are consistent with the description of the missing woman.

On September 19th, Petito’s body is discovered in the Bridger Teton National Forest in Wyoming.

Just over a month later, the remains of Brian Laundrie were found in a heavily wooded area in Florida.

Authorities believe Laundrie strangled Petito, left her body in Wyoming and returned home to Florida, disappeared into the wooded area and committed suicide.

...remains belonged to Brian Laundrie.

During that late summer and fall, airwaves across the United States were flooded with wall to wall coverage of Petito’s case.

According to reporting by The Washington Post, between September 15th through the 22nd, Fox News had 398 mentions of Gabby Petito.

CNN had 346 mentions, and MSNBC had 100 mentions of the missing persons case.

The two young influencers started their road trip just two days after Ranelle's mother followed up with Shiprock police to discover that nothing had yet been done about her daughter's disappearance.

The report hadn't made it to the criminal investigator.

The media wasn't calling for information, and the family was left to search and advocate on their own.

I think that's where a lot of families that try to report their people missing, they go through that and they give up.

I applaud the Petitos for how much they came out continuously...Getting, you know, their face out.

A lot of local families don't want to do that.

A lot of families are ready and willing to let the media because they're the experts or the law enforcement because they’re the experts, take charge of their family's case, and they need to get to the point where they're angry and they don't want them to take care of it.

This is my daughter.

This is my son.

I'm going to be at the forefront of this, and I'm going to make sure you hear my voice.

Crystal Gutierrez is an investigative journalist, former news anchor, and creator of the series Beyond the Case.

The show tackles a variety of missing persons cases, and as Crystal says, as long as someone is searching for their loved one, they'll take on the investigation.

In addition, they host and attend a variety of conventions, all aimed at bringing investigators and families together to share information, learn investigating tools, and get the word out about their missing loved ones.

When you have big conventions that allow them to come speak and allow them to come in, because it opens the minds of other people there who are thinking, wow, I should be doing more.

I should be doing more to help these, you know, minority groups that don't have as much access to what I possibly do.

Sociologist Zach Summers found in the 2016 study he conducted that missing women and children of color were covered far less than missing white women and children.

Summer said, quote, by choosing to disproportionately highlight the experiences of whites and women.

These news websites are implicitly or perhaps explicitly, intimating that the cases of those individuals matter more.

Additionally, researcher Kristen Gilchrist found that indigenous women are, “the most victimized group in Canadian society,” saying that they are three times more likely to be killed by a stranger than non-Native women.

She argues that the indigenous population is both,”underrepresented and misrepresented by the media.” It’s a mother’s greatest fear... She was a sweet girl, sweet lady to her kids, and she took care of them.

Your child disappearing without any reason.

Members of the media, and that includes movies, TV shows, podcasts, and of course, news are all largely responsible for the framing of life on tribal lands.

This is partially due to the sovereign nature of their governance, as well as certain restrictions on filming.

That is due to cultural and spiritual motivations.

However, decades of Hollywood movies and TV shows have cemented stereotypes that skew the real story of Native American life.

I most definitely believe that there is a misrepresentation of Native Americans in the media and indigenous people.

Oftentimes, we go back to the black and white movies of the cowboys and Indians, and referencing Native Americans as being drunks or being savages.

We also have the fact that there's just this persona where we have a lot of border towns, which really tend to publicize a lot of crimes that Native Americans are doing.

And oftentimes, are arresting Native Americans at high, high levels for very minor crimes like drinking and public, public intoxication, criminal trespass Repeated exposure to a negative stereotype will create a negative perception of almost any population.

High risk lifestyles, perceptions of criminal behavior, sex work, and alcoholism all find their ways into the repetitive representation of indigenous people in the media.

They're always being told, like, you don't have a voice.

My sister had gotten a tip, so the search party went out in that area because there's an oil road there that connects from Shiprock out to the Hogback chapter.

So they're doing a sweep, and they were doing a search and up on top of a hill, my stepdad and my nephews, they were doing a search up that way.

And they came across the clothes.

And that's when... she likes to wear anybody's clothes.

She likes to take people's stuff.

But there were the sandals there.

My stepdad started describing it, and my son recognized that was his flip-flops that were up there because there was a tear.

He was is there a tear on this side of that flip flop on this side?

You know, because it was a Nike slide.

And here there was and he goes, yep, that's mine.

And the last guy that she was seeing, he was known to take his girlfriends out into the reservation, into the deep end to the rez, and just drop them off and let them fend for themselves to come back when he was done with them.

One of the negative impacts of not being transparent is then the family sit in their own thoughts and know that no one in the community has reported that law enforcement is currently doing searches, or no one from law enforcement has spoken to the family, or has spoken to the last people that have saw the alleged victim.

And so when you sit in your own mind, thinking that law enforcement who is supposed to be doing their job is not doing their job based on the fact that you just don't know, that is so incredibly hard, it makes you angry.

It's our kids, you know, like my mom.

They don't know her pain.

They don't know how hard it is for a mother like my mom.

She gets up early in the morning before everybody and gets in the shower and cries.

And then she dries herself off just with her tears and continues her day.

On her birthdays, she'll go and she'll go cry out somewhere else, you know?

And Mother's Day, the kid's birthday.

It's the hardest thing for my mom.

She didn't deserve it.

None of us deserved it.

Because there's a lot of other mothers out there whose children are missing, too.

And they don't deserve it, too.

And having to wonder like that every day.

Where is my child at?

Are they coming back?

Are they gone?

[somber piano music plays] [phone dialing] -Shiprock Police Records, please hold -Sure The last time that I called Navajo Police Department, I was told that to to get police records, I had to contact the family, that I had to get permission from the family to do it, which typically, you know, when you request public records an IPRA, or something, you know, you go through the department, you submit your name, your information, what it's for.

Try and give as much detailed information.

But I don't know that any public records request has ever been a thing that you needed to get family permission.

So that's what I was told.

And this was prior to contacting Rose and Georgianna, so I'm curious to see now... we’re at almost seven minutes on hold with the records department.

[phone dialing] [phone dialing] Hello, thank you for calling the Shiprock police records section.

We are either on the phone or assisting a customer at this time.

If this is an emergency, please hang up and call (505) 368-1350.

Leave a message after the tone and we'll get back to you at your earliest convenience.

Thank you and have a good day.

Yes, my name is Chad Brummett.

Called a few minutes ago and was placed on hold and was there for about 11 minutes, so I thought I'd just call again.

I'm trying to obtain records on a missing persons case from June of 2021 for Ranelle Rose Bennett.

I have not gotten a police number, a case number on this, as I've been unable to speak to anyone from the Navajo Police Department about this.

I have spoken to Georgianna and Rose Bennett, who is Ranelle’s mother and sister, about obtaining this information, and am working on a piece about Ranelle’s case.

If someone could call me back as soon as possible, I greatly appreciate it.

My cell number is 505.

Thank you so much, bye bye.

So that's kind of the... It's kind of been how contact has gone with the Navajo Police Department.

Me and the investigator of my sister's case, we kind of bumped heads.

But I keep getting told she is dedicated to this, her heart’s in it.

She knows how we feel, but yet she's stern.

There's no empathy.

And you can tell in the tone of the voice... She’s sick of us.

“Oh, it’s you again,” kind of when they answer the phone, you know, or calling us back.

This is what, BIA yeah, that's what BIA.

Navajo Nation Police has nothing to do with it.

We've asked them for our cases, our case file on my sister, and they won't give it to us due to the fact of it being open still.

[ominous music] I've met some officers that truly are very kind and compassionate and want to make differences.

But then oftentimes we have other police officers who don't have those same similar feelings, nor do they want to know about Native Americans.

A key issue in all of this is communication.

A lack of media reporting on missing persons is caused by a lack of communication about the case from law enforcement.

However, depending on the investigations, law enforcement may not be ready or able to disclose vital details about the case.

There is a large portion of similarities that happen between all of the cases.

I think the first one is jurisdictional issues, especially on cases that occur on the reservations or pueblos, because at any given time, you could have numerous agencies who are vying to either take the case or not take the case.

So that could include tribal police, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, their criminal investigators, and also the FBI.

And oftentimes you could have a sheriff's department or a state police department as well, because there's so many areas that are checkerboard.

I think number two is the issues between communication between the families and law enforcement.

Number three would be transparency, very difficult to get any report and to get any updates from law enforcement.

And fourth, the lack of oversight that occurs in law enforcement, whether it's tribal police, the Bureau of Indian Affairs or the FBI, because there's no way to see exactly what those agencies are doing to investigate murdered, missing indigenous women and relatives.

It was a year after she went missing, and I think I went off of the crazy end.

And the last the, the my last year of my addiction, I started getting drunk, sitting there on the corner of the roads, like, “take me,” you know what I mean?

Like, if you take me, take me too, you know, take me to my sister, I didn't care.

I was drunk, sitting on the roads, waiting for somebody just to pick me up, to take me to wherever my sister was at.

It was one day I was walking down this... I walking down the road feeling sorry for myself.

Nobody wanted me at their house because I was a drunk and I was very belligerent.

And it was a clear, clear day.

No clouds in the sky, but a drop of water fell my forehead and I was like, what is this?

And I was still kind of buzzed, but coming off of the buzz and I was thinking like, you know, something told me, like, you need to stop.

You really need to stop what you're doing.

[urgent music plays] Police will not consider it a play unless they see evidence of maybe blood or, you know, ransom notes or, you know, some kind of struggle within that home.

So, the majority of missing persons cases are never listed as foul play or potential homicide.

And herein lies one of the most crucial problems in advocacy for missing persons.

If there is no strong indication that a crime has been committed, the case may not be deemed newsworthy.

However, in those crucial first 48 hours of a missing persons case, a community cannot engage in the search if they don't even know a search is happening.

How do you get the public's help if you don't tell the public what you're looking into?

[somber music plays] My father died when I was 15.

It was pretty traumatic, but I know where he's buried, and I know how his story ends.

And all of these other families, they didn't have that.

And they still don't have that.

It is not a story to them.

It is their life.

And for most of them, they may not get the resolution of seeing their loved one again, but if they can at least get some more answers to help them be at peace with what has happened in their life, I that's our job is to help another person.

We're all human.

Why would we not want to help our mankind?

Right?

There's a clear difference in the way other missing minorities are covered in news than Native Americans.

A 2020 study conducted by researchers Jean Reith Schroedel and Roger Chin compared instances of officer-involved homicides between two minority groups over a thirty-month period.

This study found that there was an average of six articles for every fatality among African Americans.

However, there were only 0.79 articles per fatality of Native Americans.

Not even one article per incident.

As a journalist, you have a duty, and part of that duty is to tell the truth, to represent all people.

And when you become a journalist, especially here in New Mexico, you have to be aware of all of the different tribes, all of the different issues that are going on here.

It's really sad when New Mexico doesn't prioritize Native American men and women and our most vulnerable.

So that's, you know, shame on you to the news stations that don't want to be a voice for those who are voiceless.

The second report, you made, the second report for Alicia when she went missing.

I had so many family members approached me as a reporter and ask, “is there any way you guys can cover, you know, my daughter's missing.

My son's missing...” And when you’re over the age of 18 or some even teenagers, unfortunately.

And local media, if there is no sign of foul play or police don't recognize it as potential foul play.

Local media typically will not cover that case.

Albuquerque police today confirmed that another West Mesa murder victim has been identified.

On the frigid morning of February 2nd, 2009, an Albuquerque woman was walking her dog on the city's west side near an undeveloped plot of land.

While on that walk, her dog discovered what looked to be a human femur, and she immediately called police.

Our source says what makes this investigation so difficult is that there are no eyewitnesses they can talk to.

In the days and weeks that followed, Albuquerque police would uncover one of the largest crime scenes in the city's history.

In total, the remains of 11 women and one unborn child were unearthed in a massive makeshift grave.

Every local media station jumped on it.

Prior to that, they got very little coverage.

The women -all minorities- were caught up in a world of drugs and sex trafficking.

To many, their, quote, high risk lifestyle may have played a role in the lack of news coverage when they first went missing.

The only archive coverage we have found is from the newspaper reporting on their disappearance.

So why did we not pay attention to them as much?

Because they're over the age of 18 and they can leave if they want to.

Despite the family saying they would never do that, despite a sister saying, I talk to her every day.

There are cases that local media will not touch unless police consider it foul play.

-But it doesn't have to be this way.

As Darlene says, she sees the breakdown in communication as something unique to the southwest region.

I do feel like here in the southwest, we have a very different experience than some of my advocates that I work with who are in the Dakotas, who have very open relationships with their BIA, MMU officers, where they can call them.

And it's a lot of sharing of information.

It's getting on cases right away.

Starting to search for the missing individuals right away.

What I see here in New Mexico is that we do not have that same relationship.

Like I said, I've only spoken one time to the Bureau of Indian Affairs when it comes to Ranelle Rose Bennett's case.

And that was just recently, within the past three months.

And that came after numerous request through the US Attorney's office.

This is kind of the problem, is that people either they can't or they don't want to discuss it or they're not at liberty.

You know, in speaking with Georgianna and speaking with Rose and just going to Shiprock and talking with these families there, it seems like they're trying to get the information out.

And the question is, where, where's the roadblock?

Why is it so?

Why is it that Gabby's case... -and these are all important- Why is it so much easier to get their information in front of the media, in front of the masses than it is Ranelle's case?

Than it is, you know, other, other indigenous people's cases?

It seems to me that if this information is not getting out there, there's there's nothing the media can do.

There's nothing we can do.

We can only report on what is verifiable.

It's ridiculous.

It's ridiculous that multiple phone calls.

Multiple... It's insane.

And then looking here at people that I would like to speak to.

She’s gone.

He's gone.

Can't do it.

Ghosted.

This cannot be done... This has got to be a coordinated effort.

This has got to be a group effort to help people.

And I just I don't get... I don't get why.

I don't get why... Why... Ranelle's life does not seem to matter as much.

That she's not just a number.

None of these women are just numbers.

None of these women are just statistics.

They're human beings.

They’re moms, they’re daughters, they’re granddaughters, they’re sisters, they’re aunts, they’re... they’re nieces.

[ominous music swells] Most definitely not.

I can tell you that I know hundreds of Native Americans who are just kind and compassionate and hard workers, and they own businesses.

We have so many members of Native American communities that are in businesses that work very hard, that are just like each one of us.

And I think oftentimes we take that away.

And we have these perceptions that Native Americans don't care, that Native Americans continue to get things for free, or that their tribe gets money from the federal government.

According to author Ezra Rosser, a professor of law at American University Washington College of Law, the Navajo land has been mined and utilized by the federal government for decades.

Oil, coal, and uranium have all been extracted from this nation, with the latter causing many Navajo workers to suffer from a variety of illnesses due to the radioactive exposure.

The generational trauma from governmental agencies has also cultivated a distrust amongst the residents.

I just wish people would speak up and that's the main thing is like everybody was grew up, grew up on don't talk to the cops, don't, it’s snitch it's snitching, But it's not snitching.

That's helping out a family.

My dad was... He got murdered and found him up where we lived.

And so he was Troy Vicente, and he got shot.

And he was been there for, like, a week.

And, we still have it on a closer yet.

And so we're still looking for who did this and.

Yeah.

[sounds of sobbing] According to 2018 data collected from the American Society of News Editors, less than 1% of all newsroom employees in the United States are Native American.

The lack of representation in these newsrooms could potentially correlate with a lack of media coverage on their cases.

Organizations like the Native American Journalists Association and the Indigenous Journalists Association work to connect native professionals to a variety of resources, including job searches and educational and networking opportunities.

Put simply, we need more Native American journalists.

But as Georgianna says, advocacy for MMIP cases shouldn't be used as a stepping stone for fame and notoriety.

For some of the media places, I think some of the people that the reporters, they would do stuff on it to get famous.

We’re kind of a soapbox for people -or taking the time to attend a full event for the murdered and missing, instead of just coming for the front part, getting your interviews and leaving because that's not telling a true and accurate story.

I do think on a larger scale for national media.

Yes.

On a local scale, I don't think it's necessarily the race.

I do think it's the economic or the social status of that individual, unfortunately.

I don't think it's everyone.

I think most people in newsrooms, most journalists are good journalists, and they want to do the best and they want to get the information out 100%.

I do think there are certain people who control the narrative and the decision making of these newsrooms that end up saying, “that person is just another gangbanger.

Who is going to be caring about them?” Well, that gangbanger, if that's what you're considering him or her, has a family and has a mom.

So they’re human, and we should not be classifying people like that.

And unfortunately, I have heard that in newsrooms in my lifetime.

Not by everyone.

It's a very, very small few.

And it's unfortunate that those small few people are usually the ones that make the decisions.

-I think what we also see is that history, as it's taught in our public schools, does not truly and accurately state what truly happened to Native Americans in this country.

So that's also led to misconceptions as well.

Accuracy in historical interpretation also extends to monuments, memorials, and dedications to historical figures.

Throughout New Mexico, You'll find roads, parks, and other municipal properties dedicated to Kit Carson, widely regarded as a hero of the American frontier.

What most of those monuments fail to mention is that Carson led the scorched earth campaign against the Navajo in 1863.

More than 3000 Navajo and Mescalero Apache died in that pogrom.

It's also within our communities that greater ownership of the problem could lead to better communication.

I feel like the community needs to hold themselves accountable because for the Gabby Petito case, there was immediate coverage from TikTokers, from people on social media.

And the more social media, kind of viral.. you know, I don't know if you want to call it “viral-ness,” I just made up a new word... But the more your case goes viral on social media, it's harder for law enforcement to kind of turn it away.

They have to take action on it.

So for Gabby Petito case, yes, she was blond.

Yes, she had blue eyes.

And I completely understand how from looking from the outside and the perspective, it's absolutely like what happened?

How did the media just pick this up?

-”He returned there alone September 1st... So if I get a case of a Native American woman who is missing and the community starts causing uproar and starts making sure that everybody knows this person's name, the media can't ignore it because now they have the pressure from the community to cover it.

If you make enough uproar, if you cause enough commotion, the media has no choice but to cover it because if they don't, they know they're going to be scrutinized by the community.

Law enforcement... Law enforcement knows if they don't thoroughly investigate this, they're going to get scrutiny by the public and then the media.

Do you get what I'm saying?

It's almost like a domino effect.

Some days it gets hard.

But at the same time, when I was lost on the streets and running crazy and like, I don't have a home, my sister would go driving around looking for me at night, yelling my name, asking people, “Hey, have you seen my sister?

Have you seen my sister?” So this is me.

Have you seen my sister?

When I got sober, I got a I had a I got a Beetle.

It's a little Herbie and... Tiny's dad helped, gave me money.

Him and my mom gave me money to do a mural.

And I had my sister on it, and it was MMIW.

And when I first put that sucker on, I went through Shiprock, and I cried the whole time, and I was like, she was beside me and I'm talking to her.

Like, where are you?

Like, what happened?

I'm like, I'm gonna show these guys that you're never gonna be forgotten.

These communities have experienced a radical and rapid rise in missing and murdered individuals for several decades.

Creating the Turquoise Alert system will give those communities more resources to slow this epidemic.

It's because of the lack of speed of awareness that leads to so many cold cases in some families waiting years, even decades, for headway in their cases.

I have a son who's now 13.

You know, I missed a big portion of his life going to his sporting events, going to parent teacher conferences, because I was in all types of communities advocating for MMIWR.

So it's time to kind of advocate for for my teenage son now.

My niece is like a typical native woman.

She watches us and see how we handle our problems.

So it's for me, the way I see it is that she keeps herself busy.

She's in sports constantly.

It's all she does her sports and I know at the get go.

She was frustrated because she's she doesn't like to look for herself to be... She don’t want nobody feeling sorry for her.

So she doesn't really want no one to know that her mom is missing.

He keeps to himself.

He's more.

He goes to counseling.

It hurts him, hurts him a lot.

And it's hard for him to get close to any of us because he thinks we're just going to go too, you know?

I think he's always going to have that issue of that because some days he wants a hug, but he'll just kind of look at me and just stare.

-Seeing her daughter, who is now advocating for her mother.

It makes me sad, but it makes me happy.

But that's nothing a teenage girl should be having to do is to advocate for her mother, because she's a voice that very rarely gets heard.

And if it wasn't for her family spending so much time and effort into advocating for Ranelle, I don't believe we would be where we are today.

We have a thing in our culture like whoever makes the baby laugh, they will take on their their their attitude, you know?

So I'm blessed that she made my grandson laugh.

He's five now.

His name's Quentin and he he's just like her.

One day we were driving to his baseball game because my sister likes to look at the clouds and she sees things in the clouds and, you know, and one day we're driving to my grandson's baseball game, and he's in the back, and he's all, “look, he was look, Nollie, there's a shark!” And I was like, there's no shark.

You know, we're driving through Kirtland and I'm like, there's no shark He goes, “up there!” You know, the clouds... That made me think of my sister right there.

Just things that he does like that and says things, especially when he acts goofy.

Reminds me and my sister.

[phone dialing] [ambient sounds of Santa Fe] Yes, is this the Shiprock Police Department?

-Yes it is.

My name is Chad Brummett.

I'm a journalist working on a story about a missing persons -Your name is what?/ case... Chad Brummett, and I'm.

Yes, -Can you hear me?

-How do you spell your last name?

B-R-U-M-M, as in mike... E-T-T as in tango.

And I'm calling because I am working on a missing persons case investigating missing persons case back from June of 2021.

And I'm wondering if there is someone from the police department that can provide comments on it.

The family has said that they have had issues getting information about their their daughter's missing persons case, and was just wanting to see if I could speak to someone there about this?

Okay.

Can I get your name, your phone number?

It's 505.

Okay.

Let me pass this on to my officer in charge.

Okay.

And we'll give you a call back.

Somebody with the 928 number.

Okay.

Great.

Thank you.

Okay.

Bye bye.

All right, so it's 10:26 on September 18th.

See if they call back.